Cracked Shells

The beach was an ancient ruin to her, but instead of crumbling buildings and broken pottery, there was only soft sand and deceptively blue skies. Each grain of dust contained history. Each broken shell.

We collected some of these shells. He dropped some.

Her wrinkled fingers reached down to grasp a clam shell cracked in half.

Did he drop this one?

She knew it wasn’t likely. After all, the beach’s sands and creatures constantly shifted back and forth with the tide, moving in time with the universe’s hourglass. Over half a century had passed, taking with it any possibility that his footprints and laughter would be left behind.

“Grandma!” A voice chirped up from behind her, followed by the sounds of padding feet. She turned, tightening her black knitted shawl around her body. The sun used to be enough to warm her through, but the sea wind that day was just too biting for her old bones.

The girl who’d spoken up was just the opposite, her eyes bright as she twirled in her royal blue one-piece that complemented her dark skin. Her curly hair was tied up in two buns. “Do you like my new swimsuit? I bought it just for our beach day.”

“It’s beautiful, Coraline. You look like a model,” she chuckled. “Strut your stuff, honey.”

“You know I will.” She winked and twirled around, bringing out her phone to take a picture of herself in front of the ocean. Her mother, Veronica, called her over to help set up the blankets and umbrellas. Evie couldn’t help but watch her family members cluster together to set things up, laughing at her son-in-law as he fumbled with the grill, until she caught the youngest boy escaping the bunch to run out to the waves.

Her heart stopped for a moment. “Adrian! Adrian, don’t go out by yourself!” She walked towards him as fast as she could, her tender feet sinking into the sand, her cane pushing aside shells.

The ten-year-old stopped and looked over at her, his eyebrow raising like he hadn’t expected to get chastised like a little kid. “Uh...”

“What’s wrong, mama?” Her daughter looked up from the umbrella she was struggling to unfold. “I’m watching him, he’s fine.”

Evie paused, swallowing. Of course. Veronica was right there. He was fine.

She had always loved this beach. It was full of her most tender memories. But it only took one accident…

It just took one moment of not looking away to taint the place forever.

Coraline walked over to her grandma, crossing the distance she had struggled over in a breath.

Evie chuckled. To be sixteen again.

That was when he had dropped those shells.

“What’s wrong?” The girl asked, her eyebrows knitting with concern. Always sweet, always bubbly, always full of life.

He was just like her.

The old woman smiled softly and took her hand. “Your grandma lost a friend to this place once. I looked away for just a moment, and he was gone. He was your age.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Oh my gosh, I had no idea. That’s so sad. I’m sorry.” She looked down, fidgeting because she wasn’t sure what to do. “Wow. You’d think once you get a little older, that wouldn’t happen. The waves don’t sweep you off your feet as easily.”

“You’d think,” Evie said simply, smiling a little. “But it happens all the time. Be careful, alright?”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry. I probably won’t swim that much in my new suit.”

Evie snorted. “Oh, good, wouldn’t want to swim in your swimsuit.”

“I need to keep it looking this good!” The girl protested. Evie looked over her shoulder to meet Veronica’s eyes. She looked up at the sky with a dry expression.

Evie walked over to her family and sat in a collapsible beach chair under an umbrella with a grunt. The grill grilled, Coraline collected shells and chased her brother into the waves, and their parents walked the edge with them.

Every time they went a few feet too far out into the ocean, her heart stopped. She watched the ocean and stared as their feet disappeared under the shifting foaming water.

He just disappeared. All it took was one second of looking away, and he disappeared.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have beach days anymore, mama. You look like you’re about to have a heart attack every time we wade in just a little,” her daughter spoke up, sipping some Sprite on her own orange beach chair. “I know you have some bad memories of this place.”

“I...I would come back every year anyway,” she said, mostly to herself. “I’m always looking for him. I know it’s crazy, but I can’t help it.”

They watched the sun begin to settle into the sea in the distance, like a child sinking into the covers of a warm bed, safe and sound.

“You’ve never really said what happened.” Her daughter’s dark eyes glimmered in the sunset, like warm charcoal. “Who was it?”

“Cory. He was my best friend. We grew up and went to school together.”

She was quiet again, as if shocked Evie had said that much. “You say he...he disappeared.” She looked at Evie. “Did he drown?”

Evie paused.

“No.”

Her daughter’s eyes narrowed.“What?”

“He...” She pressed her lips together, her fingers weaving tightly over her cane like she was about to get up and walk away from the conversation. “He was taken.”

“Taken.”

“Yes.”

“Taken by who?” She squinted. “Some kidnapper?”

He was holding his bag full of shells. They were going to take them home and paint them.

They shattered on the ground. Their fragile shells.

She turned around.

He was gone.

She looked out into the ocean and saw a shape--a fin--disappear into the darkness below.

Evie stared at her cane. “No, no. I don’t know. I suppose it’s my brain tricking me. I’m sure he was just caught by the tide and drowned. My memories have never been quite right for that day.”

“I imagine. It must have been traumatic, Mama. I’m sorry. The mind tricks you when it goes through something like that.”

Evie nodded, still watching her hands grip the cane. The years had gone on. They had gone on and on, and she had married a wonderful man, had children and grandchildren. She had loved and lost a husband and her own parents long since. Still, that moment where she heard his shells fall and shatter...it turned her blood to ice.

Her daughter’s hand patted her shoulder as she stood up, stretching her back and dusting sand off her rump. “Alright, kiddos, it’s time to pack up. Let’s go before it gets dark.” Her husband, Tim, grunted as he stood up, and then silence settled over them.

“Coraline?” Veronica called. “Adrian!”

Evie’s heart stumbled and her eyes lifted from her cane. She stared out into the ocean and sighed with relief. Adrian waved at them, his grin huge, his sister a floating head behind him with a pouty expression and seaweed in her hair. “I got her to finally get wet!”

“You pushed me,” she grumbled.

“You pushed me first.” He stuck out his tongue. She grinned and slapped some water at him.

“Hurry on in!” Veronica waved at them, rolling her eyes. “At least she got some use out of that suit.”

Evie chided herself for getting worried again and helped them with packing up the food and sunscreen and towels. Adrian came and helped, and Veronica and Tim gathered up the foldable chairs under their arms.

“Coraline? Come take this from me,” Evie said, then turned and looked for her. “Coraline?”

Coraline was knee-deep in the foaming water, pulling seaweed out of her hair and brushing sand off her back. A black clawed hand reached around her waist.

Veronica passed in front of Evie, bustling to gather her things. “Coraline, hurry up, we need your help!”

And she was gone.